Lethal Heating: 08/16/19

16/08/2019

Dave Eggers: Why We Should Listen To Teenagers Speak About Climate Crisis

The Guardian - Dave Eggers

As the International Congress of Youth Voices kicks off in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Guardian invited young delegates to write about their fight against the climate crisis

International Congress of Youth Voices, David Eggers interacting with students. Photograph: Isabel Talanehzar

Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is a writer, publisher and humanitarian campaigner.
He has written 14 books, including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What Is the What, The Circle and Heroes of the Frontier.
Dave Eggers is co-founder of the International Congress of Youth Voices, and co-founder of 826 National, a network of youth writing and tutoring centers around the United States.

Teenagers speak with a directness and a moral clarity that is desperately rare in our elected leaders, and perhaps in the adult species as a whole.
That’s why we created the International Congress of Youth Voices. It’s an annual gathering of young writers and activists, ages 16 to 22, who speak and live with urgency.
The first conference was last summer in San Francisco, where almost a hundred delegates from twenty-six countries gathered, and were mentored by the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Khaled Hosseini, and congressman John Lewis.
One of our most inspiring young delegates in that first conference was 15-year-old Salvador Góomez-Coló n from Puerto Rico, who created his own non-profit to help the island’s recovery after Hurricane Maria.
Eight months ago, we decided that we’d hold the second Congress in San Juan. We knew Puerto Rico would be a rich and inspiring location for the delegates to explore issues of colonialism and climate change, for starters, but we had no idea it would be, in August of 2019, the most exciting place on the planet to watch grassroots democratic change in action.

'I am growing up in a world whose life systems are unraveling'
Jamie Margolin

And this recent gubernatorial unseating began with our increasingly volatile climate, and how we react to it. Governor Ricardo Rosselló did not meet the reasonable expectations of his people, he denigrated them in their time of need, and now he’s gone. And the people who marched, who took to the streets and wouldn’t leave until he left, were overwhelmingly young.
This was a youth movement, and demonstrates what can happen when young people convert their outrage into action.
The delegates of the International Congress of Youth Voices are doing this every day. And one of the issues they’re most passionate about is – no surprise, given that they are inheriting our towering mess – climate change.
The following essays provide a sampling of their thoughts, plans and, to be sure, their justifiable exasperation.
“I am growing up in a world whose life systems are unraveling,” writes Jamie Margolin, in one of the most sobering examples of the psyches of young people growing up with the prospect of a climate apocalypse.
“In ten years I’ll be 28. My life will just be beginning when the world is ending.”

Dave Eggers talks with youth delegates, including Salvador Gómez-Colón, left, at the International Congress of Youth Voices in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photograph: Isabel Talanehzar

What follows are short pieces
by student delegates to the
International Congress of Youth Voices

•••

♦ Why I fight for climate change by Joshua Borokinni

Joshua, a 19-year-old delegate from Lagos, Nigeria, is a climate activist, social innovator, and journalist with a keen interest in sustainable and developmental reporting.

Losing a friend to a climate-induced flood in 2016 is the reason I committed myself to a cause bigger than myself – climate action. This quest for a better planet was a reaction to my friend’s death which saw me spend six hours daily for a month in the library – studying climate change – its etymology, science, politics, legal frameworks and projections.
Climate change is inarguably the biggest single threat to existence of lifewhich affects every constituent of the planet – humans, animals, oceans, deserts, atmosphere inter alia. We have seen an unprecedented increase in heatwaves, cyclones, food insecurity and drought in recent times.
In Nigeria, climate change is the underlying drive for the current Fulani Herdsmen - Farmers clashes which has seen the death of over 5,000 people in the past four years. The Chad basin is drying up and the Sahel savannah is experiencing immense drought and desert encroachment, forcing herdsmen to move down south in search for pastures. As the migration has increased, so too have violent clashes over grazing lands between local farmers in the south and pastoral herdsmen, whom the former accuse of wanton destruction of their crops and forceful appropriation of their lands.
Sadly, in the wake of these happenings, Nigerians have yet to see climate change as an important issue. Many international treaties are yet to be joined, climate action gets less than 1% of the budget, and the president has not focused on climate policy. This is attributed to the widespread poverty, unemployment, insecurity and bad governance leaving climate action as an URGENT but NOT IMPORTANT agenda on the scale of preference. Nonetheless, these problems are all interconnected and Nigeria has a low adaptive capacity towards the impact of climate change.
Governments need to do more! As the United States’ elections draw near, it is high time to put aside political differences and prioritize the safety and sustainability of all Americans by putting climate action at the top of the to-do list. The world needs to see aggressive and action-driven interventions across all levels of government and a responsible green-oriented populace to mitigate the scary projections of climate change, else, there will be nowhere to run.

•••

♦ A bad dystopian movie by Jamie Margolin

Jamie, 17, is a Colombian-American writer, community organizer, activist, and public speaker living in Seattle, Washington, who founded Zero Hour, an international youth climate justice movement.

If you were watching a movie, and all of the characters in it knew there were only 10 years left to save the world, but they continued going on with their lives as if nothing was happening you would yell at the screen right? I would.
We on planet Earth are living out that movie. Climate change and environmental destruction are quite literally ending the world – and the United Nations has made it crystal clear through years of extensive scientific research that we have a maximum of 10 years left in order to turn the tides on the climate crisis and save humanity and every creature we share this once-blue earth with.
Ten years left to save the world.
That means starting yesterday, we have to radically change our society – the way we live, the way we power our lives and fully make that just climate action transition in the span of 10 years in order for it to not be too late.
I’m 17 years old, going into my senior year in high school, and I am growing up in a world whose life systems are unraveling. In 10 years, I’ll be 28. My life will just be beginning when the world is ending. It is not fair to my entire generation that we are inheriting this monstrosity of a problem. It’s hard enough trying to grow up and live your life, let alone inherit this crisis that makes it so your future will be full of chaos and disaster.
That’s why I, along with 12 other young people and the help of the non-profit, Our Children’s Trust, recently sued the state of Washington. Why? Because the whole state government is screwing over my generation. Washington state’s elected officials love to talk about solving the climate crisis, but then turn around and issue permits for fossil fuel plants that poison communities, and destroy ecosystems, water, air and land that my generation and future generations need to survive.
What’s even crazier? The lack of necessity. They are destroying our life support systems with a fossil fuel energy system that is wholly unnecessary to provide for our basic energy needs. Experts across the planet say that we don’t need to power our planet with dirty life-threatening fuels.
I can’t risk not fighting. My future is on the line.

•••

♦ Why do I fight for climate change? by Matilde Bondo Dydenesborg

Matilde is a 15-year-old climate activist and writer from Denmark.

For years, I didn’t know the climate problems we were facing, but when I found out I kept asking myself: will I have a future? Why didn’t we do anything when we had the chance? Adults were condescending. I felt like the only thing I could do was trust the people who had the power to change. I was concerned that global warming wasn’t their first priority, and all I did was go to school every day, asking myself: what am I doing here when a world is disappearing outside my window?
Then I started researching. My teacher told us about the international movement School Strike 4 Climate. Students from around the world were deciding not to attend class, but rather take part in demonstrations demanding action and the changes they wanted to see. I thought this could be my opportunity, quickly asking my friends if they wanted to go. Though they agreed, I found out they were more interested in skipping class than demanding change from the powers that be. I was disappointed because I thought they cared as much as I did. I wanted them to care as much as I did.
While skipping class to insist upon action is valuable, education is foundational. That’s why I founded an environmental council at my school. I fight for my future, and I fight to inspire people to do the same. I fight for surviving.

Links

Making One Billion People Resilient To Climate Change By 2030

Forbes - Joan Michelson

“World food security increasingly at risk due to ‘unprecedented’ climate change impact, new UN report warns.” That’s the official United Nations website announcing a new report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).Our food is at risk? That gets our attention!

Screen shot of UN webiste on food security report 8-2019

United Nations website

The soil across the globe is being depleted by current agricultural processes and climate change, the report says, adding hat the solution is to use “plant-based foods and fuels.”
The report emphasizes that scaling solutions is critical to drive results – fast. But how?
Many communities are tackling this issue, but one here, one there is not fast enough to combat the current pace of climate change. A new center with powerful partners and resources has been formed to scale viable solutions at a record pace, that is, to reach one billion people on the planet with resilience solutions by 2030. That’s only 10 years.
“So, the urgency couldn’t be greater,” Kathy Baughman McLeod, the inaugural Director of the Atlantic Council’s new Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center told me recently. To do so, they are laser focused on scaling solutions that have proven to be effective based on hard evidence. It’s also about campaigns to educate the public about what they can do in their own homes, schools and communities.

Kathy Baughman McLeod, Atlantic Council Resilience Center, C40 Cities

photo Atlantic Council

Partnering with local communities and the Urban Institute and leveraging the solutions and plans developed by the Resilience 100, another Rockefeller Foundation initiative, the Resilience Center is focused on actionable, effective, results-focused, and measurable technologies and campaigns to reduce the risks of climate change and increase resilience and security. “Our focus is adaptation,” McLeod said.
This is not another opportunity for startups to pilot their programs, nor is it planning. And, no, they do not give grants. They work through partnerships and align with commitments cities and countries made in the Paris Climate Accord and with the Sustainable Development Goals.
McLeod said their key questions for whether or not they accept a project are, “Can we add value?... Are they asking for our help? Do we have something unique that others don’t? ... Where can we be effective and how can we get to a billion people in 10 years?”

Practical, Scalable, Community-Driven
McLeod emphasized that they have to be very practical and cost-effective, because, “We’re pure implementation.” Since they are focused on getting it done, being 100% convinced is not an option. If they are 80% sure it will work, it’s a “go.”
“We’re flying it and building it at the same time,” she explained. One strategy that are using to scale solutions is to test solutions across countries by leveraging “regional risks pools,” composed of several countries that are sharing the risks and reducing insurance costs.
The Center is helping cities and communities leverage the plans and strategies they have developed. “There’s a great pipeline,” McLeod said. “They know what needs to be done, the financial aspects and specific risks to that community. They know the stakeholders to engage.”
Some solutions are communications tools, for example, to help residents with the threat of global heat, which is lethal in some areas. She described an app the city of Athens developed called “Extrema,” which helps citizens find out where they can go to cool off and what they can do to protect their health, based on their location, age, and health status.

NOAA graphic on frequency of billion-dollar climate disasters 1980-2019

NOAA

“The Psychology of Resilience”
McLeod said they are “thinking about the psychology of resilience,” person by person, with families doing things differently, too. This is behavior modification, so they are also looking at how culture can help.
For example, video games that teach kids about climate change and being psychologically resilient (“such as a competition to beat the storm, beat the flood”), plays about it, and Batik art that inspires resilience.

Open Source
“Everything we do is going to be open source,” McLeod emphasized, because “one of the tenets of our work, is that we’re going to share how these projects are going early and often…as frequently as every 90 days,” because scaling fast is crucial.
This will create a huge collection of best practices for improving the resilience of communities and reducing the risks of climate change, including what has not worked for which communities and why, that anyone anywhere can access for free.

Links

Greta Thunberg Sets Sail For New York On Zero-Carbon Yacht

The Guardian - Jonathan Watts

Climate activist begins voyage from Plymouth to Trump’s US with father and two-man crew

Greta Thunberg begins zero-carbon Atlantic voyage.

On white-crested swells under leaden skies, the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg has set sail from Plymouth on arguably her most daunting challenge yet.
A two-week crossing of the Atlantic during hurricane season in a solar-powered yacht is the first obstacle, but it is unlikely to be the toughest in an odyssey through the Americas over many months.
This will be both the ultimate gap year and a journey into the heart of climate darkness: first to the United States of president Donald Trump, who has promised to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, and then down to South America, possibly including Brazil where president Jair Bolsonaro is overseeing a surge of Amazon deforestation.
In between, the 16-year-old Swede will add her increasingly influential voice to appeals for deeper emissions cuts at two crucial global gatherings: the Climate Action Summit in New York on 23 September and the the UN climate conference in Santiago in early December.
The reception awaiting her on the other side is likely to be mixed, with the climate issue a polarising point in US politics.

In a taste of the hostility that is likely to come from supporters of the fossil fuel industry, Steve Milloy, a Fox News contributor and former member of the Trump transition team, described Thunberg on Twitter earlier this week as “the ignorant teenage climate puppet”.
The young founder of the school climate strike movement appeared unfazed in a quayside press conference before she boarded the vessel. “There’ll always be people who don’t understand or accept the science. I’ll ignore them,” she said. “Climate delayers want to shift the focus from the climate crisis to something else. I won’t worry about that. I’ll do what I need.”
Speaking to a throng of several dozen reporters from around the world, she said her primary goal was to raise awareness among the public about the climate emergency. “People (need to) come together and put pressure on people in power so they have to do something,” she said.
Asked if she will meet Donald Trump, the teenager said it would be a waste of time because the US president hasn’t been persuaded by the experts he has already spoken to. “I’m not that special. I can’t convince everyone,” she said.
The voyage is a demonstration of her declared values, which revolve around reducing emissions. A flight to New York would have been much quicker, but it would pump close to 1,000kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Conventional cruise ships often have an even bigger footprint.
Instead, Thunberg – along with her father, a cameraman and a two-man crew – are taking a zero carbon option.
The Malizia II is an 18 metre (60ft) racing yacht that was built for round-the-world challenges and has just completed the annual Fastnet competition. It generates the power for lighting and communication through solar panels and underwater turbines. The racing team have removed sponsorship logos from the hull and emblazoned Greta’s slogan “Unite Behind the Science” on the mainsail.
The yacht is designed for speed rather than luxury so conditions will range from basic to difficult. There is no toilet or shower on the boat, only blue plastic buckets. Inside the cabins the lights are dim so Thunberg will need a headlamp or torch to read and keep her journal. Internet access is also likely to be patchy, so her 883,000 Twitter followers may have to wait longer than usual for updates via satellite phone. Her diet will be freeze-dried vegan meals – she has given up meat, which is a major source of emissions.
The young Swede is braced for sea sickness. Although the waves were small as she left Mayflower Marina in Plymouth, she will be fortunate if they remain that way. August is part of the hurricane season in the Atlantic. Even in moderate swells, the vessel is noisy and bumpy.
The experienced German captain, Boris Hermann, said the 3,500 nautical mile journey would demonstrate that it is possible to cope without fossil fuels and get closer to nature. “I want to show that this can be positive and exciting,” he said. “And that solidarity with Greta is not limited to eco-activists.”

Make America Greta Again placard seen as Climate change activist Greta Thunberg sets sail for New York in the 60ft Malizia II yacht. Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

The journey marks a new stage in the remarkable rise of the young Swede, who was unknown outside of her family and school until she started a climate strike last August. She has been diagnosed with Aspergers and has at various times experienced depression, anxiety and selective mutism. Today, however, she has become the spokesperson for the global climate movement and its most recognisable face.Her Fridays for Future campaign has now mobilised more than a million students across the globe. She has been invited to UN summits, feted at the World Economic Forum in Davos, nominated for the Nobel peace prize, collaborated on a song with the band the 1975, appeared on the cover of countless magazines and been credited with injecting new life into the climate movement.
Last month, the head of the trillion-dollar Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) described the campaign by Greta and others as the greatest threat to the fossil fuel industry.
“Some things are actually changing, like the mindsets of people. It’s not fast enough, but it’s something,” she said.

Thunberg gets a hug before she begins her voyage. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA

The scale of the movement will be tested on 20 September, when Thunberg and others have called for a global general strike for the climate.
By that time Thunberg should be in the US, where she plans to meet the UN secretary general, António Guterres, as well as US politicians. She has been promised a warm welcome from the congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with whom she has already discussed strategies to raise climate ambitions and mobilise campaigners.
Supporters hope Thunberg’s 12 months off school will be a world-changing gap year. After the US, Thunberg will head south to the UN climate summit in Santiago. Asked if she would also visit Brazil, Thunberg was vague. “I’ll travel around the whole continent,” she said. “I’m taking it step by step … I’ll travel for I don’t know how long. I want it to be loose. Not a tight schedule so that it can change as time goes by.” That includes the return voyage. “I don’t know yet how I will get home.”
As she walked towards the yacht in her black waterproofs, there were cheers, applause and cries of “Safe journey.” By the time the vessel pulled into the harbour, the skies cleared, and better weather is forecast this evening and next week.
On Tuesday, Thunberg will pass the first-year anniversary of her campaign in the middle of the Atlantic. “I will see how I will celebrate. I don’t know yet. I will think about it,” she said. “I think it will be quite an adventure.”

Links